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Saturday, 7 May 2016

Review - 'Legends of Tomorrow', S01E14 - 'River of Time'

After a season-long trend of Vandal
Savage managing to slip from the team's grasp every time they come
close to defeating him, the previous episode ended with with Savage
pushed into a corner – only for Kendra Saunders to take it upon
herself to make the decision not to kill him, after all.

She had her reasons, of course.
Realising that the current incarnation of Carter Hall, the man she is
destined to love, has been captured and brainwashed by Vandal Savage
is enough to cause a moment of hesitation – and, the Savage's claim
that he is the only one that can restore Carter is, ultimately,
enough to stay her hand. So, with Kendra now refusing to perform the
only job she really had, as a part of the team, Rip is left with no
other option but to take Vandal Savage prisoner.

And, so, this is where things pick up
with the fourteenth episode. Vandal Savage is held as a prisoner on
the Waverider, as is the brainwashed Carter Hall – and, the rest of
the team is left struggling to come up with a new plan of action.
Leonard Snart and Mick Rory argue that keeping Savage alive is
clearly a mistake – and, Sara Lance seems to agree. Rip Hunter
would, clearly, still like to see the man who slaughtered his family
dead, also. But, of course, it is all a moot issue while Kendra
remains reluctant to do the deed – since, thanks to the vaguely
defined mystical connection between them, she is still the only one
who can.

It's a somewhat frustrating situation
for both the audience, and the rest of the cast. Kendra has, after
all, not been the most useful member of the team over the course of
the season – so, having her transition from not really contributing
anything to actually hindering the team's mission isn't exactly a
positive development. There is another interesting development,
though. While studying the technology that went into creating Vandal
Savage's Leviathan robot, Ray Palmer and Dr Stein realise that it is
constructed from technology well beyond what is possible even in the
22nd Century.

Rip now has clear evidence that Vandal
Savage, too, seems to have discovered the secret of time travel –
and, that he has been manipulating the time stream in his efforts to
conquer the world. So, believing that he now has the information that
he needs to finally convince the Time Masters that Vandal Savage
needs to be dealt with, Rip comes to the conclusion that taking
Savage directly to his former associates will provide a means of
circumventing Kendra's sudden reticence.

The only problem, though, is that the
Waverider is still damaged, making the journey to the 'Vanishing
Point' risky. Then, of course, there's Vandal Savage, himself, who
proves to be quite skilled at manipulation. Or, at least, that is
what the writer's of this episode clearly intended to suggest –
though, in truth, Vandal Savage's efforts at manipulation in this
episode came across as so painfully obvious that any character who
fell for it (such as Ray) just ended up looking foolish.

While the basis premise of this episode
would seem to point toward tense character-driven drama, things don't
quite work out that way, in practise. Unfortunately, 'messy' is the
only word that really comes to mind, here. This is an episode which
features many moments that were clearly intended to be tense and
dramatic, yet very few of them actually work as well as they need to.

Jax, for example, is involved in an
accident while trying to repair the Waverider's engine – one that
sees him exposed to 'temporal radiation', with the consequence that he
is now ageing at a rapidly enhanced rate. It's a bizarre enough
affliction that it feels like it could have easily been the basis of
an entire episode – but, here, it is treated more as a minor
sub-plot. More than that, though, it was a sub-plot that was glossed
over so rapidly that efforts to milk a genuinely dramatic scene out
of Jax's plight felt unearned.

Rip does have a somewhat interesting
arc over the episode, admittedly – where he is forced to come to
terms with the possibility that he might, ultimately, be willing to
sacrifice the crew he has gathered for the sake of the family he has
lost. It is a fascinating dilemma, certainly – but, it is treated
in such a vague and perfunctory manner that any character drama it
should have provided is lost. Rip has his doubts at the beginning,
then seems able to put them aside by the end – and, there is
nothing in between.

Meanwhile, with Carter Hall
reappearing, Kendra and Ray's romantic troubles are brought into the
spot-light in a much more pronounced way than ever before. This
romantic sub-plot had been somewhat troubling from the beginning,
when it just seemed to come out of nowhere. Since then, though, there
has been some effort to justify its inclusion (with the two years
that Ray and Kendra spent together, off-camera, a few episodes ago,
for example) – but, through it all, the lack of any convincing
on-screen chemistry between Brandon Routh and Ciara Renee has made it
difficult to feel any sort of emotional investment.

All of this comes to a head here, of
course, as Carter's reappearance instantly forces them into an
awkward 'love triangle' situation. Kendra seems almost hilariously in
denial about the situation, and Ray is instantly jealous – while
the brainwashed Carter, meanwhile, just wants to get free so that he
can kill them both. Especially amusing, though, is the fact that
Kendra seems to display more genuine concern and affection for this
brainwashed murderer, in these few scenes, than she ever has for Ray
– honestly, it's enough to make my wonder if the oddly forced
quality of Ciara Renee's performance in her scenes with Ray was
actually intentional.

Either way, though, this romantic drama
has felt like a miss-step from the start – and, nothing happens here
to change that fact. Though, I will say that, based on his
performance in this episode, I do wish we could have seen more of
this brainwashed version of Carter Hall over the season. Falk
Hentschel hadn't been all that impressive in his more heroic role,
earlier in the season – but, he proves to be an effective villain,
here.

On a more positive note, though, this
episode does also manage to provide Casper Crump with some of the
best material he has had, so far, in his portrayal of Vandal Savage.
Savage's efforts at manipulation might have comes across as painfully
obvious, but Casper Crump still managed to play it well. It's strange
to consider the fact that Vandal Savage only truly began to feel like
a genuine threat at a point when the team seems to have him at their
mercy – but, that's exactly where we find ourselves, here.

Also, Leonard Snart and Mick Rory
remain the entertaining presence they have always been, throughout
the season. Here, though, they seem to have found themselves cast as
the team's only true voice of reason, with each being entirely
convinced that taking Vandal Savage prisoner is bound to end badly.
Also, Snart has what would have to be the best line of the episode
(and, maybe, the series, so far) when he responds to Savage's
boasting by declaring himself to be "Leonard Snart, robber of
ATMs".

Despite its issues, though, this
episode still manages to turn things around somewhat by the end –
bringing the episode to a close with a very entertaining (if not
entirely unexpected) last minute twist. It may not have been quite
enough to salvage the episode, on its own, but it does, at least,
offer up the possibility of significant improvements as we approach
the end of the season.